Windows Terminal — The Modern Terminal for Windows by Microsoft

Introduction

Windows Terminal is a modern host application for command-line shells like PowerShell, CMD, and WSL. It was released as open source by Microsoft to replace the legacy Windows Console Host with a fast, GPU-accelerated experience that supports tabs, split panes, and rich text rendering.

What Windows Terminal Does

• Hosts multiple shell profiles (PowerShell, CMD, WSL, Azure Cloud Shell) in a single tabbed window
• Renders text with GPU acceleration using DirectX for smooth scrolling and crisp fonts
• Supports Unicode and UTF-8 for multilingual and emoji-rich output
• Provides split panes to run shells side by side in a single tab
• Offers deep customization via a JSON settings file for themes, keybindings, and profiles

Architecture Overview

Windows Terminal is a C++ UWP/WinUI application that uses a DirectWrite/DirectX-based text renderer called the Atlas engine. Each tab runs a ConPTY (Console Pseudo Terminal) session connected to a shell process. The settings layer reads a JSON file that defines profiles, color schemes, key bindings, and appearance. A XAML-based UI hosts the terminal control, and multiple panes share a single tab via a tree layout managed by the Pane class.

Self-Hosting & Configuration

• Settings live in %LOCALAPPDATA%PackagesMicrosoft.WindowsTerminal_8wekyb3d8bbweLocalStatesettings.json
• Edit settings via the UI (Ctrl+,) or directly in the JSON file
• Add custom shell profiles by specifying commandline, startingDirectory, and icon
• Install color schemes from the community or define your own under schemes
• Set "defaultProfile" to your preferred shell GUID

Key Features

• Tabs and split panes for multitasking across shells
• GPU-accelerated Atlas text rendering engine for high-DPI displays
• Full Unicode, UTF-8, and emoji support including colored glyphs
• Customizable key bindings, color schemes, and background images
• Quake-mode dropdown terminal via global hotkey

Comparison with Similar Tools

• PowerShell console — the legacy host lacks tabs, GPU rendering, and split panes
• Alacritty — cross-platform and GPU-accelerated but no built-in tabs or panes
• WezTerm — Lua-scriptable cross-platform terminal with multiplexer built in
• Hyper — Electron-based terminal with plugin ecosystem but higher resource usage
• Ghostty — Zig-based terminal focused on correctness; Linux and macOS only

FAQ

Q: Does Windows Terminal work on Windows 10? A: Yes. It requires Windows 10 version 1903 or later and can be installed from the Microsoft Store or winget.

Q: Can I use it as the default terminal on Windows 11? A: Yes. Go to Settings → Privacy & Security → For developers → Terminal, or set it in Windows Terminal's own settings under Startup → Default terminal application.

Q: How do I add a WSL distro as a profile? A: Windows Terminal auto-detects installed WSL distros. They appear in the profile dropdown after installing a distro via wsl --install -d <distro>.

Q: Is there a portable or standalone version? A: Microsoft provides a standalone ZIP archive on the GitHub releases page that can run without installation from the Store.

Sources

• https://github.com/microsoft/terminal
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/terminal/